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Dutch Sauce

A custard-like sauce made with egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, parsley, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, served warm with fish or cutlets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Dutch Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan over low heat, whisk the egg yolks until they reach a custard-like consistency.

  2. Carefully blend in the melted butter, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice, chopped parsley, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with fish or cutlets.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a custard-like emulsion that holds its body.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, and is emulsified into the yolks for a smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and yolk flavour.

The step that matters

Blending in the melted butter. If the butter is added too fast or the mixture gets too hot, the yolks can scramble or the sauce can split. Adding the butter slowly over low heat while whisking keeps the yolks thickened and the emulsion smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, lemon, parsley, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, lemon, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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